O Pioneers! | Page 9

a second time, a Stockholm woman of
questionable character, much younger than he, who goaded him into
every sort of extravagance. On the shipbuilder's part, this marriage was
an infatuation, the despairing folly of a powerful man who cannot bear
to grow old. In a few years his unprincipled wife warped the probity of
a lifetime. He speculated, lost his own fortune and funds entrusted to
him by poor seafaring men, and died disgraced, leaving his children
nothing. But when all was said, he had come up from the sea himself,
had built up a proud little business with no capital but his own skill and
foresight, and had proved himself a man. In his daughter, John Bergson
recognized the strength of will, and the simple direct way of thinking
things out, that had characterized his father in his better days. He would
much rather, of course, have seen this likeness in one of his sons, but it
was not a question of choice. As he lay there day after day he had to
accept the situation as it was, and to be thankful that there was one
among his children to whom he could entrust the future of his family
and the possibilities of his hard-won land.
The winter twilight was fading. The sick man heard his wife strike a
match in the kitchen, and the light of a lamp glimmered through the
cracks of the door. It seemed like a light shining far away. He turned
painfully in his bed and looked at his white hands, with all the work

gone out of them. He was ready to give up, he felt. He did not know
how it had come about, but he was quite willing to go deep under his
fields and rest, where the plow could not find him. He was tired of
making mistakes. He was content to leave the tangle to other hands; he
thought of his Alexandra's strong ones.
"DOTTER," he called feebly, "DOTTER!" He heard her quick step and
saw her tall figure appear in the doorway, with the light of the lamp
behind her. He felt her youth and strength, how easily she moved and
stooped and lifted. But he would not have had it again if he could, not
he! He knew the end too well to wish to begin again. He knew where it
all went to, what it all became.
His daughter came and lifted him up on his pillows. She called him by
an old Swedish name that she used to call him when she was little and
took his dinner to him in the shipyard.
"Tell the boys to come here, daughter. I want to speak to them."
"They are feeding the horses, father. They have just come back from
the Blue. Shall I call them?"
He sighed. "No, no. Wait until they come in. Alexandra, you will have
to do the best you can for your brothers. Everything will come on you."
"I will do all I can, father."
"Don't let them get discouraged and go off like Uncle Otto. I want them
to keep the land."
"We will, father. We will never lose the land."
There was a sound of heavy feet in the kitchen. Alexandra went to the
door and beckoned to her brothers, two strapping boys of seventeen and
nineteen. They came in and stood at the foot of the bed. Their father
looked at them searchingly, though it was too dark to see their faces;
they were just the same boys, he told himself, he had not been mistaken
in them. The square head and heavy shoulders belonged to Oscar, the

elder. The younger boy was quicker, but vacillating.
"Boys," said the father wearily, "I want you to keep the land together
and to be guided by your sister. I have talked to her since I have been
sick, and she knows all my wishes. I want no quarrels among my
children, and so long as there is one house there must be one head.
Alexandra is the oldest, and she knows my wishes. She will do the best
she can. If she makes mistakes, she will not make so many as I have
made. When you marry, and want a house of your own, the land will be
divided fairly, according to the courts. But for the next few years you
will have it hard, and you must all keep together. Alexandra will
manage the best she can."
Oscar, who was usually the last to speak, replied because he was the
older, "Yes, father. It would be so anyway, without your speaking. We
will all work the place together."
"And you will be guided by your sister, boys, and be good brothers to
her, and good sons to your mother? That is